Extra legs do not make a better dancer.

Did you know that dinosaurs are just a figment of your imagination? Do you realize that the Fornax Cluster is just a carefully orchestrated ruse to confuse you into thinking that the Earth is not the center of the universe? The twinkle is a lie.

I feel comfortable with my answers for a great number of life’s questions, but one still bugs me: should you be exposed to ontology before mathematics? Numbers bewilder me. I embrace eternity, and so I find difficulty in accepting whole numbers. What is “one” in a universe where infinitesimal smallness is a possibility? Where is fallacy in infinite potential?

I am not, nor have I ever truly been, a Christian. I have read the entire Bible, plus a good number of apocryphal texts, and made a concerted effort to familiarize myself with history of Christianity. I will honestly say that I did so not to find truth, but to discern meaning in the idea of faith. I was baptized, educated one-on-one by a minister I had great respect for. I led prayers and wove references to the works of George Orwell into them. I participated in at least ten mission trips and dutifully bowed my head during the blessings at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. I never believed–I never had faith. I find myself separate from a large number of the people that I am acquainted with–mostly, through my own individualism–because I am not a game day Christian. Where I assumed it would become easier to express my views as I grew older, I have found that it has definitely become more difficult to engage in constructive discussion on the issue of faith, not because others refuse to take up the debate with me, but because they are unable to. I have never, and will never, profess that I am more intelligent through my humanism; however, I find it unfortunate that so many who would vilify me for my beliefs–or lack thereof, by their standards–have no understanding of their own faith. I despise postcard wisdom, especially when people base their entire approach to life on a purple monkey dishwasher method of education.

My family, on both maternal and paternal sides, is Christian. While I get the feeling that there are individuals within my family that are at least agnostic, if not fully atheist, my fear of disapproval and misunderstanding has always overridden my desire to come out and say “I am a humanist.”

I am a Humanist.

I believe that a meaningful life is achieved through constant movement and frequent change. Modern organized religion, as I perceive it, is structured as and meant to be a destination, a stasis reached and a position maintained, when all of the universe is laid out before us as an endless mutable journey. Regardless of how it sounds, a Secular Humanist does not place humanity above all things, but can place humanity in any position in relationship to its environment morally and ethically for the good of the universe. We are custodians of nature, not despots over the “lesser” species–we accept that we live in a minuscule fragment of the universe, and that the future may well reveal that there are greater evils than ourselves to overcome in the vast expanse of space. We are proponents of the endless pursuit of knowledge without boundary, we believe in a better tomorrow, whether we are there to witness it or not. We are futurists and visionaries, not concerned with forcing the universe to fit into our views, but adjusting our views to encompass the ever-changing universe.

We are neither afraid of the dance, nor of death, for within all of us is energy that binds us to infinity. We are the children of stars, and we are alive in the same profound and glorious structure of the cosmos.

I believe in infinity, and I believe in Iguanodons.